#5 Joyful Presence 2025
The Month of Joyful Presence
June 10 to July 19,2025
Ever since Happiness heard your name
It has been running through the streets
Trying to find you.
–Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
A long-ago memory of helpful instructions about acting onstage offers an enchanting way of approaching and celebrating this month of seeking, finding, celebrating, and utilizing the potent Presence of Joy in our lives.
The book was written by a noted theatre personage, Michael Chekhov, and the work I am remembering was his book To the Actor. In this book, he proposes a technique to enliven and support our work on stage in both tragedy and comedy. He suggests imagining and establishing a character or series of characters to support you in playing King Lear and/or one of the clowns in The Comedy of Errors. My sense of the purpose is to augment one’s energy and skill by having this other imagined character holding and embodying the essence of Lear or the lightness of the comic character.
For example, were I to attempt the impossible role of King Lear, I might imagine a giant oak tree moving with me, powerfully voiced, deeply rooted still, but with a crack afflicting the trunk, fierce, still unbending, but vulnerable to the agony of storms and lightning strikes. The image of this tree would guide me, hold me, tear me to pieces and eventually show me how to submit to intolerable forces.
Were I to become a clown I might imagine bright bouncing bubbles of light and laughter all around me, keeping me light on my feet, alert to surprise, ready for anything.
This challenging and enchanting work of imagining becomes especially useful in these days when tragedy and comedy collide and combust with history every hour. All too often tragedy seems to prevail.
It is especially useful during this month of honoring the Presence of joy. We can imagine vividly and courageously what She looks like, and how She feels, tastes, smells, sounds, and moves, plus what she knows and wants and enjoys. Then we invite Her to be our constant companion, to teach us about Herself, lead us to more understanding and practice. Inspire us to more creativity.
The next lines of the poem by Hafiz are:
And several times in the last week,
God Himself has even come to my door—
Asking for your address.
That says to me that the poet realizes that happiness and joy are companions of the Divine, the Beloved seeking us and available to us.
Let Joy find you. Every Day.
Joy in the World.
And in me.
Praise. Praise. Praise
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